East Palestine, United States – The Norfolk Southern train line runs right through East Palestine, Ohio, stopping cars and pick-up trucks on their way into town at the railway crossing. It can be a long wait, as train car after train car, some carrying toxic chemicals, roll past the clanking railroad crossing sign. The village, home to fewer than 5,000 people, was decorated with American flags for the upcoming Independence Day celebrations when I arrived there in late June.
Morgan Parker laughed as I paused my interview to wait for the rumbling to pass. “I don’t even notice it any more,” the longtime resident said of the noise. But the lingering impact of a massive train derailment that happened nearby on the evening of February 3, 2023, is something she thinks about constantly.
I was there in June to cover a meeting of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which was in town to present its final report on what caused the crash and what happened two days later when five of the 38 derailed cars were blown open and set on fire by local authorities on the advice of Norfolk Southern and some of its contractors.
The derailed cars were carrying 1.1 million pounds of toxic vinyl chloride, and the authorities were worried that not doing this would result in a more catastrophic, uncontrolled explosion.
This is a process known as “vent and burn” – a high-skill but very much last resort and potentially dangerous method of clearing chemical pollution from the environment. It is an option rarely taken.
The vent and burn – during which vinyl chloride was allowed to drain out of the cars into a trench and then set alight with flares – had spewed toxic black smoke into the air and forced everyone within a one-mile (1.5 km) radius to flee their homes. Chemical pollution released from the crash has since been detected across 16 states.
The headline from the NTSB meeting was that its chair, Jennifer Homendy, accused Norfolk Southern of interfering with the investigation. The report blamed the company for the derailment and found that the vent and burn had been unnecessary.
The news only further enraged the residents who believed they had effectively been poisoned by the crash and the subsequent vent and burn. As far as residents like Parker were concerned, the final report was far from the end of the story.
Those who lived within a 32km (20-mile) radius of the crash site had just days to decide whether or not to accept their share of a $600m settlement on offer from Norfolk Southern to compensate them for the disaster.
Parker, a single mother of two, had moved her children out of the two-family home owned by her mother for five months. Since coming back, she said, she had been suffering from constant nasal drip, and was worried about the chemicals that had been released and the lingering effects.
Norfolk Southern has admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement and has stood by its recommendation to vent and burn, denying that it withheld any information from first responders or local officials and saying it “cooperated fully and ethically with the investigation”.
‘My hair started to fall out’
Parker came to the East Palestine High School auditorium to hear the findings of the NTSB, as did Carly Tunno who lives on the Pennsylvania side of the border. Tunno said she was frustrated by what she saw as the report’s lack of answers related to environmental contamination. But most of all, she was terrified about its potential effects on her family’s health.
“At the end of March 2023, my hair started to fall out,” explained the mother of two young children who wore a scarf over her head. “I’ve lost all the hair on my head. My children have been sick constantly – rashes, things like that.”
Other residents who spoke during the question-and-answer session also reported suffering from respiratory issues, rashes and the sudden appearance of tumours and nodules in the months following the crash.
The NTSB did not weigh in on the environmental and health impact of the crash as that is the responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the two months following the crash, the agency collected soil samples from 146 locations near the site and determined toxicity levels were normal enough that people could safely eat produce grown in their gardens. But some residents aren’t convinced.
“This is not a coincidence. The train derailment happens and everyone gets sick,” 47-year-old Jami Wallace told me outside the school after the report was presented. She said her young daughter had developed respiratory issues and her young niece had started having seizures.
“We are still going to be stuck in contaminated homes that are making us sick,” she said.
“This isn’t just about money, it’s about justice.”
On July 1 – the first deadline to opt in to the settlement – Wallace’s lawyer, David Graham, formally objected on behalf of her and other residents, asking the judge overseeing it to push it back to October 31.
His filing notes that the settlement does not address potential ongoing and long-term health impacts on the community, and does not make clear exactly how much anyone will be compensated.
“They don’t even know what they are opting out of [by accepting the settlement],” Graham told me. Should the judge agree to his request, it would affect all of the people eligible for the class-action settlement.
‘It can happen in any community’
Before the NTSB presented its findings, the agency, along with the US Justice Department negotiated a separate $310m settlement with Norfolk Southern to cover the community’s past and future cleanup costs and to improve rail safety. That includes a $15m fine.
Norfolk Southern did not respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera about the motion to extend the deadline.
In seeking the delay, Graham referenced the work of a nonprofit advocacy organisation, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), which accuses the EPA itself of mismanaging the derailment response.
GAP says independent research revealed that some garlic grown locally after the crash contained 500 times more dioxins than garlic grown locally before the crash.
The organisation also points to an EPA contractor who has accused the agency of failing to deploy chemical sensors properly and in a timely manner after the derailment.
As a result of these complaints, the EPA opened an investigation into its response earlier this week, but has so far stood by the results of its testing.
But Marilyn and Robert Figley, who grew the contaminated garlic in their garden, have since joined eight other residents in opting out of the settlement and launching their own lawsuit.
Many residents told Al Jazeera they want answers as well as changes to the way railroads do business, as recommended by the NTSB to prevent a similar catastrophe in the future.
“These changes aren’t going to help us but they could help another community because – trust us – you do not want to go through what we are continuing to live with every single day of our lives,” Wallace said. “This is not a political issue. It is not red, it is not blue, it is an issue of human lives. It can happen in any community.”
